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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide

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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,

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Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.

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Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Foundation's podcast, which is brought

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Speaker 2: to you by First Light. I'm your host, Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 2: In today's episode is all about comparing ourselves to others

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Speaker 2: and that kind of weird disease that seems to have

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Speaker 2: infected whitetail hunters. Absolutely, they didn't really want to do

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Speaker 2: this podcast because it's kind of a little too predictable,

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Speaker 2: and I'm sure it's going to be a little too preachy.

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Speaker 2: But I think the new year and the direction whitetail

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Speaker 2: hunting is kind of going probably makes this a little

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Speaker 2: more palatable for a lot of us. It's also good

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Speaker 2: for us to remind ourselves what matters in deer hunting

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Speaker 2: and how we should probably just watch our own bobbers,

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Speaker 2: as my wife likes to say. So, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: talk about trophies in comparison, in the shitty ways we

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Speaker 2: treat each other, and why all this is leading the

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Speaker 2: you know, some loss and opportunity and just making things worse,

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Speaker 2: kind of just sucking the joy out of the whole thing.

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Speaker 2: A few weeks back, one of my really good buddies

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Speaker 2: and I sat in a hotel room in western Minnesota

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Speaker 2: after a day of falling one bird short of our

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Speaker 2: pheasant limit. It was honestly a great day in the

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Speaker 2: public land cattails. The dog work was incredible. The birds,

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Speaker 2: they're pretty plentiful, and for the most part where we

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Speaker 2: pointed our shotguns, our strings of fives and sixes went.

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Speaker 2: If it wasn't for one last runner that my buddy

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Speaker 2: knocked down that evaded three worn out dogs until the

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Speaker 2: clock ran out, it would have been about as good

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Speaker 2: as you can get. Now. While I don't see him often,

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Speaker 2: when we do get together, it's great. We talked about

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Speaker 2: a lot of stuff, and then he mentioned that he

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Speaker 2: was within a few months of a huge buyout at

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Speaker 2: work and that when it came he was punching out

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Speaker 2: forever at the age of forty five. Do you know

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Speaker 2: what I felt in that moment? Peer unadulterated jealousy, envy.

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Speaker 2: This is a guy who has been one of my

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Speaker 2: best friends since we were twelve. I got him into

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Speaker 2: bass fishing and then into bow hunting. We've traveled to

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Speaker 2: so many states and we've worked public land, white tails

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Speaker 2: and turkeys. He watched me shoot my first meal, dear

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Speaker 2: and help me pack it out, and I watched him

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Speaker 2: shoot his and helped him pack it out. We try

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Speaker 2: to go fish in the salt water once a year,

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Speaker 2: and it's pretty tough to find someone who is more

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Speaker 2: of a gamer to do the work and keep a

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Speaker 2: smile on his face the whole time than him. But

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Speaker 2: when he told me he was about to be relatively

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Speaker 2: free financially, boy did it uncage something ugly inside of

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Speaker 2: me that I'm not proud of. My first reaction wasn't

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Speaker 2: to be happy for him, which is what a good

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Speaker 2: human would probably do. My first reaction was to almost

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Speaker 2: be pissed, and that doesn't make me feel great. But

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Speaker 2: then I thought, you know, he's been under a crazy

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Speaker 2: amount of stress for years. To do the job he

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Speaker 2: does at the level he got to, you have to

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Speaker 2: make huge sacrifices. I can remember fishing with him on

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Speaker 2: a small trip to northern Minnesota when we were in

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Speaker 2: our early thirties, and he spent far more time on

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Speaker 2: his phone working than he did casting senkos into the

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Speaker 2: pockets of vegetation looking for a large mouth. I remember

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Speaker 2: thinking during that trip that I wouldn't trade positions with

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Speaker 2: him for the world, and I wouldn't have. But the

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Speaker 2: minute that all of that stress and sacrifice paid off

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Speaker 2: for him, I couldn't help but think why couldn't that

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Speaker 2: be me? But it couldn't, and it never would have been.

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Speaker 2: I didn't have the vision he did to see what

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Speaker 2: it would become, nor the chops to pursue it. His path,

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Speaker 2: his skills, his life situation, his goals, his drive is

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Speaker 2: whatever was a course set far differently from mine. We

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Speaker 2: had damn near the same upbringing and so many of

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Speaker 2: the same shared passions, But the similarities between two people

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Speaker 2: have to end somewhere. It's a poignant lesson on human behavior.

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Speaker 2: And I know you know where I'm going with this.

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Speaker 2: We do with everything in life, and we sure as

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Speaker 2: hell do it with deer hunting. And I don't know

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Speaker 2: if it's worse now than when I started a long

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Speaker 2: time ago, but I think that it is. We have

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Speaker 2: almost no way to not see other people's successes these days.

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Speaker 2: It's everywhere. It's just about everyone is ready and willing

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Speaker 2: to show their success off to the world. Worse than that,

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Speaker 2: everyone else has the ability to weigh in on those

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Speaker 2: other people's lives in a way that is just so unhealthy,

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Speaker 2: or at least it can be now. I spoke about

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Speaker 2: this on a recent Wire to Hunt episode with Mark,

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Speaker 2: but I want to talk about it again because I

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Speaker 2: think it's important. Medeater recently dropped an episode with me

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Speaker 2: taking one of my twin daughters, who was eleven at

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Speaker 2: the time when we filmed it, over to Wisconsin on

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Speaker 2: a combo deer in bear Hunt. A spoiler alert here

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Speaker 2: if you haven't watched it, but the bear hunting was

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Speaker 2: a bust for a few seasons. Nuisance trapping cleared out

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Speaker 2: my best bait site, and the weather just planes sucked

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Speaker 2: for hunting bears. We did have a few little bucks patterned,

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Speaker 2: and when we set out our first evening, I knew

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Speaker 2: there was a decent chance that either a spike or

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Speaker 2: forky would come in, and I kind of expected both

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Speaker 2: of them to. They were our hitlisters because they were

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Speaker 2: the only two bucks I had any consistency on. But

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Speaker 2: do you know who doesn't really want a trophy hunt

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Speaker 2: eleven year old girls who might get two weekends a

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Speaker 2: season to hunt, and who happened to be hunting in

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Speaker 2: a county where ninety percent of the fawns are killed

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Speaker 2: in the first eleven months of their lives, due largely

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Speaker 2: to the fact that the region is infested with coyotes, wolves, bears,

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Speaker 2: and bobcats. Add in Wisconsin's huge hunting culture, which I love,

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Speaker 2: by the way, and I truly mean that, And of course,

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Speaker 2: you know, every person you meet over there, or it

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Speaker 2: seems like it, at least in the northern half of

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Speaker 2: the state, seems to wear camouflage more often than not.

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Speaker 2: In social settings, everybody hunts, you know. Then you have

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Speaker 2: the once every I don't know so many years winter

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Speaker 2: that just grinds the deer down to a pulp and

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Speaker 2: leaves the herd shll of its former self. You just

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Speaker 2: have the toughest place I've ever deer hunted, and I've

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Speaker 2: haunted a lot of places. So when that spike walked in,

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Speaker 2: there was no question whether it was going to get shot.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't my tag, And even though I gave her

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Speaker 2: a little bit of shit and tried to talk her

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Speaker 2: into waiting for that four ky because I knew he

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Speaker 2: was going to come in. It wasn't my call. My

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Speaker 2: daughter killed that spike and she was super happy with herself,

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Speaker 2: and I was real happy with her too, and she

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Speaker 2: should have been happy with herself. But like an idiot,

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Speaker 2: when meat Eater dropped a little teaser from that hunt,

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Speaker 2: I started reading the comments, which is against my personal

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Speaker 2: policy because it is terrible for my mental health. The

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Speaker 2: very first comment was from someone asking why she would

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Speaker 2: shoot that deer instead of letting it go for a

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Speaker 2: bigger one. Not taking things personal is really not my

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Speaker 2: strong suit, and it just blew my mind that someone

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Speaker 2: would suggest an eleven year old girl hunting the big

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Speaker 2: woods of northern Wisconsin should be a trophy hunt. And

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Speaker 2: I also can't help thinking that if eleven year old

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Speaker 2: kid on a show passed up a whole bunch of

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Speaker 2: deer to shoot a big one, the comments probably wouldn't

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Speaker 2: get any better. Sometimes you just can't win, but you

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Speaker 2: can't put yourself in someone else's hunting boots, or at

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Speaker 2: least acknowledge that you might not know a single thing

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Speaker 2: about their situation. You likely don't. I often see field

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Speaker 2: Good posts or here on podcasts with hunters about how

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Speaker 2: hunters are some of the best people out there. That's

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Speaker 2: not true. We are just people who hunt in that

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Speaker 2: mix are great people. Some of my favorite, most giving,

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Speaker 2: most generous people in the world are definitely hunters, which

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Speaker 2: should come as really no surprise since I have heavy

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Speaker 2: exposure to hunters, so the sample is way biased. But

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Speaker 2: some of my least favorite people are hunters too, So

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Speaker 2: I don't know where to go with that other than

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Speaker 2: to acknowledge that maybe it's a human nature thing and

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Speaker 2: not something predicated on whether you own a few trail

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Speaker 2: cameras or not. The thing about this stuff is that

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Speaker 2: it's all so much bullshit wrapped up to justify how

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Speaker 2: we personally want to do things. If you have a

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Speaker 2: sweet lease where you can grow dear and name them

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Speaker 2: and have the time to take off of work to

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Speaker 2: hunt them when the cold fronts move in or the

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Speaker 2: rut is burning hot, that's great. I'm happy for you.

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Speaker 2: But you have nothing in common with a hell of

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Speaker 2: a lot of hunters, and this cuts both ways. If

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Speaker 2: you only hunt public land and would be stoked to

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Speaker 2: arrow a single dough all season long while you're out

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Speaker 2: there with the masses. It's not the lease hunter's fault.

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Speaker 2: Different paths and lives, good luck, bad luck, privilege. There's

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Speaker 2: not equity out there and how life shakes out, and

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Speaker 2: it's a consequence of nature that there never will be.

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Speaker 2: And we've seen many times through humanity where we've tried

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Speaker 2: to force equitable results, and boy does it not work. Well.

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Speaker 2: Let's take that lease hunter in that public land hunter

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Speaker 2: and dive a little deeper. The lease hunter might tell

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Speaker 2: you that his challenge is mature bucks and that he's

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Speaker 2: the one who is responsible because those bucks that reach

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Speaker 2: prime age have spread their genes and you know, lived

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Speaker 2: a good deer life and taking him out when he

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Speaker 2: hits five and a half is the right thing to do.

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Speaker 2: He probably even believes that, but it's mostly just the

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Speaker 2: coat of paint we put over deer hunting to be

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Speaker 2: trophy hunters and not feel bad about it. There's no

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Speaker 2: divorcing that hunter from the antlers he wants, and when

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Speaker 2: those antlers don't stack up to whatever, then that buck

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Speaker 2: who really represents what he says he's out there for.

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Speaker 2: It's a pass. I watched this happen in real time

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Speaker 2: once and it blew my mind. You know, I have

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Speaker 2: a buddy who really talks the trophy talk. But when

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Speaker 2: a incredible older buck walked in during a late season

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Speaker 2: hunt where we were sitting together, that buck got a

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Speaker 2: pass because he had dropped aside already. I told him

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Speaker 2: that that was the mature buck he's been talking about

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Speaker 2: all season long, right there in the flesh within bow range,

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Speaker 2: ready to take an arrow through both lungs. But it

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Speaker 2: wasn't the same buck in his eyes. And that's fine,

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Speaker 2: it's his tag. But maybe we should acknowledge more fully

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Speaker 2: why we do what we do, and maybe that would

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Speaker 2: temper some of our willingness to shit on folks who

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Speaker 2: don't or can't do what we want to do. Personally,

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Speaker 2: then you have that just happy with a dough public

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Speaker 2: land hunter who can throw a pity party with the

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Speaker 2: best of them while also trying to feel superior because

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Speaker 2: he's doing it the hard way. Maybe he really can't

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Speaker 2: get on any private land anywhere near where he lives

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Speaker 2: for some reason, or maybe he just doesn't really try

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Speaker 2: that hard. Maybe it's not a big priority for him

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Speaker 2: the way it is for that lease hunter who goes

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Speaker 2: out and bird dogs till he gets a place that

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Speaker 2: really does something for him. Maybe the public land that

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Speaker 2: public land hunter is on is actually way better than

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Speaker 2: he thinks, because in my experience across so many states,

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Speaker 2: that's almost universally true, even though a lot of people

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Speaker 2: don't want to believe it. Maybe he just doesn't really

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Speaker 2: put it in any scouting time. Maybe he hunts like

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Speaker 2: he's on private land and expects private land results, but

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Speaker 2: that just doesn't work. Maybe there's a million things he

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Speaker 2: could do to have a better season and he just

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Speaker 2: doesn't do them. There's no moral high ground there. It's

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Speaker 2: just the other side of the same coin. What are

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Speaker 2: we doing to each other? I think the best way

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Speaker 2: to look at this is to think about the folks

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Speaker 2: who are generally really supportive and try to avoid this

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Speaker 2: caddy biznatcho bullshit. I've had the good fortune of working

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Speaker 2: with a hell of a lot of dog trainers in

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Speaker 2: my life and have that time has been pretty immersed

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Speaker 2: in that world.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: I know I've talked about this a lot, but one

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Speaker 2: of my favorite people in the world is a fellow

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Speaker 2: named Tom Dowkin, who is maybe the best retriever trainer

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Speaker 2: to ever set foot on the planet. I've spent hundreds,

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Speaker 2: maybe thousands of hours talking to Tom about life and dogs,

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Speaker 2: and I've never heard him say a bad thing about another. True,

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Speaker 2: he doesn't have to. He's been there and done that

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Speaker 2: and has nothing to prove and nothing to gain by

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Speaker 2: taking someone else down. You guys, hear me talk a

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Speaker 2: lot about Andy May. There's a reason for that. I

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Speaker 2: just respect him a ton as a person and of

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Speaker 2: course as a deer hunter. I don't know. You put

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Speaker 2: Andy in Antarctica with a bow and a deer tag

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Speaker 2: and somehow a one sixty would swim across the ocean,

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Speaker 2: show up there, leave a little sign, and Andy would

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Speaker 2: kill him. He would probably only take him about three

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Speaker 2: days too. When you talk to him, he has nothing

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Speaker 2: to prove to anyone else. He's proving things to himself

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Speaker 2: and he always will be. He's not the kind of

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Speaker 2: guy to question why an eleven year old girl would

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Speaker 2: gladly whack a spike buck, and it wouldn't make sense

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Speaker 2: to him to even think about it other than that's

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Speaker 2: just a net positive for hunting in general. His journey

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Speaker 2: is impressive, easily one of the most impressive of anyone

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Speaker 2: who has ever bought a deer tag. But it's is

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Speaker 2: and if you want to emulate someone, emulate him, think

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Speaker 2: about this stuff for yourself. I talk a lot about

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Speaker 2: goals and trying to find some way in the outdoors

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Speaker 2: to fill our cups, so to speak. And I think

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Speaker 2: when you see a guy like him, he's just one

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Speaker 2: of the few who has it figured out at least somewhat.

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Speaker 2: He knows what he needs to do to keep silencing

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Speaker 2: that inner critic, even though the voice always comes back

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Speaker 2: and always will need another lesson and just shutting the

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Speaker 2: hell up for a little bit. So what do you

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Speaker 2: need to do. It's not take a look at others

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Speaker 2: and wonder why they can do what you can't. Is

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Speaker 2: to look at yourself and wonder, what can I do

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Speaker 2: that I think I can't do, or what can I

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Speaker 2: do that I really just want to, but I think

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Speaker 2: I shouldn't because of what others will think. What can

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Speaker 2: we do to stop comparing ourselves to others? And what

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Speaker 2: is essentially a solo journey that we are so damn

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Speaker 2: lucky to get to take. The answer to that question

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Speaker 2: will change over time. It'll change by the season and

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Speaker 2: by the day. It's fluid and nuanced like life. This

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Speaker 2: is one of the reasons why so many hunters are

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Speaker 2: generally so unhappy with their hunting right now. If you

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Speaker 2: decide that you want to keep up with the deer

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Speaker 2: hunting joneses and start the season with the goal of

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Speaker 2: a one forty or bust, take a hard look at

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Speaker 2: what that goal will mean for you, and then think

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Speaker 2: about how it affects you as the actual hunting season

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Speaker 2: comes and goes. What if the days you have off,

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Speaker 2: you know, the ones you marked on the calendar weeks

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Speaker 2: in advance, mostly you just end up with the wind

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Speaker 2: you didn't think you were going to get, or there's

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Speaker 2: a little too much sun and heat and not enough

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Speaker 2: cold fronts. Or what if your kid surprisingly makes a

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Speaker 2: traveling sports team and your weekend hunting time gets cut

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Speaker 2: in half in an instant. What's important to you on

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Speaker 2: your journey? Then maybe the goal still is, Or maybe

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Speaker 2: you suddenly realize that while you're sitting out there that

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Speaker 2: mature bucks are real cool, but so is that ninety

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Speaker 2: seven inch eight pointer that is feeding his way towards

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Speaker 2: you in the row of beans fifteen yards out, and

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Speaker 2: that you you'd love to make a really great shot

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Speaker 2: on a deer and not have the pressure of finding

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Speaker 2: time to hunt closer to the rut, and boy does

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Speaker 2: he look delicious and wouldn't it just be fun to

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Speaker 2: shoot him? In that case, airw that son of a bitch,

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Speaker 2: throw a pair of middle fingers up in the air

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Speaker 2: and be proud of it. You did something that most

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Speaker 2: hunters won't do this season, even though if you look

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Speaker 2: at social media too much, you might be convinced that

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Speaker 2: you literally killed the smallest buck anyone killed in your

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Speaker 2: state during the entire season. And that means not only

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Speaker 2: that you're a terrible hunter, but also a terrible human

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Speaker 2: and you know, probably has the tiniest manhood in all

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Speaker 2: the land and should probably just go live under a

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Speaker 2: bridge with all the other outcasts who shoot young bucks

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Speaker 2: like a bunch of losers who can't kill the deer

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Speaker 2: someone else thinks they're supposed to. Sorry, folks, I get

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Speaker 2: a little fired up on this stuff. I love deer

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Speaker 2: like you, and I think it's just a gift that

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Speaker 2: they are out there, and for the most part, if

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Speaker 2: you put in a minimum amount of effort, you can

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Speaker 2: at least hunt them anywhere they live. And getting to

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Speaker 2: hunt them at all is what really matters, not what

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Speaker 2: you kill. What doesn't matter is how other folks hunt

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Speaker 2: them or what other folks choose to fill their tag on.

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Speaker 2: And if someone argues with you that you shouldn't have

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Speaker 2: whacked that two year old beanfield muncher because it took

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Speaker 2: a future trophy away from someone else, just let it go.

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Speaker 2: It's not worth it. Every deer we shoot takes a

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Speaker 2: deer away from someone else, sort of, just like every

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Speaker 2: deer we try to hoard on our properties kind of

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Speaker 2: takes a deer away from someone else maybe, And yet

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Speaker 2: they are always out there waiting to be hunted somewhere

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Speaker 2: by someone. And if that someone is happy with the

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Speaker 2: deer that walks down the trail, who are we to

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Speaker 2: decide they are wrong. That's just bananas to me, just

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Speaker 2: as it is to get caught up in comparing ourselves

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Speaker 2: and our own successes and failures to other folks who

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Speaker 2: are undoubtedly, unquestionably on a different journey, a journey that's

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Speaker 2: just wrought with totally different circumstances. Some of us get

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Speaker 2: to retire early, some don't. Some shoot one hundred and

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Speaker 2: sixty inch bucks without burning a calorie, while others will

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Speaker 2: never ever see a deer of that caliber out in

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Speaker 2: the wild. That's how it goes. But at the root

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Speaker 2: of it is the reality that we get to do

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Speaker 2: our own thing for ourselves, and we should be happy

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Speaker 2: about that. We should try to be the kinds of

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Speaker 2: good people that hunters are supposed to be, the ones

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Speaker 2: we talk about when we want to portray our ranks

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Speaker 2: as just a little kinder, a little more giving than

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Speaker 2: the general population. That's a good goal to have. I think,

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Speaker 2: think about that and then come back next week because

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Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about something I'm pretty deep into

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Speaker 2: right now, which is how to find a new state

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Speaker 2: to hunt this fall, and how to find a place

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Speaker 2: to hunt in that state, which is really a process

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Speaker 2: that has changed a hell of a lot in the

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Speaker 2: last five or ten years. That's it for this week.

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Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt

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Speaker 2: Foundation's podcast. I just want to thank you guys so much.

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Speaker 2: This podcast has gone on way longer than I expect

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Speaker 2: it to and it really means so much to me.

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Speaker 2: All the support. It's crazy. If you have Mark and

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Speaker 2: I here at Meat Eater at Wired to Hunt. We

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Speaker 2: love you guys, we really do, and we appreciate everything

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Speaker 2: that you've done for us. If you're sitting there in

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Speaker 2: the off season and you just need to live vicariously

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Speaker 2: through Us or Clay or the Element Boys or whoever.

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Speaker 2: You want to check out some hunting films or maybe

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Speaker 2: listen to some other podcasts, go to the meeteater dot com.

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Speaker 2: Check it out. Tons of articles, tons of podcasts, tons

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Speaker 2: of shows, tons of good hunting content is over there,

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Speaker 2: the medeater dot com